Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Emerging Tech
  3. Guides

Weekend Workshop: Become a hipster and build this DIY vinyl record player

Digital Trends Staff
By

weekend workshop how to build a diy record player 060416
mikeshorr117 / Instructables
Need something to keep you busy this weekend? Look no further. The Weekend Workshop is our weekly column where we showcase a badass DIY project that you can complete with minimal skills and expertise. We’ve dug through all the online tutorials on the web, and gone the extra mile to pinpoint projects that are equal parts easy, affordable, and fun. So put on your work pants, grab your tool belt, and head to the garage — it’s time to start building!

As any baby boomer or beard-growing, plaid shirt-wearing hipster might tell you, vinyl records are the only way to listen to music. Be it for the (disputed) fact that vinyl records sound better or the simple desire to physically own an album as opposed to booting up a streaming service, vinyl has seen its popularity dramatically increase over the last several years. It’s not hard to see the allure, either. Having the ability to sift through a crate of music while searching for those perfect Saturday morning tunes is far better than clicking the magnifying glass in Apple Music — for some folks, anyway.

Recommended Videos

Considering the fact this appeal has spread like wildfire, simply buying a record player (used or new) doesn’t offer much in the way of expressing your individuality. But what if you made your own? This is exactly what Instructables user Mikeshorr117 did and the finished product is gorgeous. With a little bit of plywood, a few 9V batteries, and a small set of speakers, this savvy DIYer created a completely original vinyl turntable that not even the trendiest music lover could own.

Weekend-Workshop-060416-
mikeshorr117 / Instructables
mikeshorr117 / Instructables

To help you get started on building your own unique DIY record player, we’ve sifted through Mikeshorr117’s build list to piece together an exact index of what’s needed for the project. Though this build opted for a plain exterior box design, Mikeshor117 does say any alterations or additions are up to the builder. Just make sure you have enough space in the box for the speakers, motor, and amplifier, otherwise the rest of the walkthrough will be difficult to pull off. Here’s what you’ll need to get started:

Tools:

  • Circular saw
  • Clamps (4 or 5)
  • Power drill

Materials:

  • Wood glue
  • Plywood
  • Small electric motor (9V battery-powered)
  • 9V batteries
  • Wiring
  • Small amplifier
  • Speaker set
  • Wooden rods
  • Ring magnets
  • Potentiometer
  • Phono-cartridge (needle)
  • Circular disk

With the necessary batch of materials gathered and at the ready, it’s now time to start piecing together this incredibly easy DIY record player. Simply follow Mikeshorr117’s comprehensive walkthrough and in no time, you’ll be just a few White Stripes records shy of being the hippest person on your block. Happy building!

The complete step-by-step process for building this DIY record player can be found here.

Topics
Digital Trends Staff
Digital Trends Staff
Digital Trends has a simple mission: to help readers easily understand how tech affects the way they live. We are your…
Digital Trends’ Tech For Change CES 2023 Awards
Digital Trends CES 2023 Tech For Change Award Winners Feature

CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:

Samsung's Relumino Mode
Across the globe, roughly 300 million people suffer from moderate to severe vision loss, and generally speaking, most TVs don’t take that into account. So in an effort to make television more accessible and enjoyable for those millions of people suffering from impaired vision, Samsung is adding a new picture mode to many of its new TVs.
[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.

Read more
AI turned Breaking Bad into an anime — and it’s terrifying
Split image of Breaking Bad anime characters.

These days, it seems like there's nothing AI programs can't do. Thanks to advancements in artificial intelligence, deepfakes have done digital "face-offs" with Hollywood celebrities in films and TV shows, VFX artists can de-age actors almost instantly, and ChatGPT has learned how to write big-budget screenplays in the blink of an eye. Pretty soon, AI will probably decide who wins at the Oscars.

Within the past year, AI has also been used to generate beautiful works of art in seconds, creating a viral new trend and causing a boon for fan artists everywhere. TikTok user @cyborgism recently broke the internet by posting a clip featuring many AI-generated pictures of Breaking Bad. The theme here is that the characters are depicted as anime characters straight out of the 1980s, and the result is concerning to say the least. Depending on your viewpoint, Breaking Bad AI (my unofficial name for it) shows how technology can either threaten the integrity of original works of art or nurture artistic expression.
What if AI created Breaking Bad as a 1980s anime?
Playing over Metro Boomin's rap remix of the famous "I am the one who knocks" monologue, the video features images of the cast that range from shockingly realistic to full-on exaggerated. The clip currently has over 65,000 likes on TikTok alone, and many other users have shared their thoughts on the art. One user wrote, "Regardless of the repercussions on the entertainment industry, I can't wait for AI to be advanced enough to animate the whole show like this."

Read more
4 simple pieces of tech that helped me run my first marathon
Garmin Forerunner 955 Solar displaying pace information.

The fitness world is littered with opportunities to buy tech aimed at enhancing your physical performance. No matter your sport of choice or personal goals, there's a deep rabbit hole you can go down. It'll cost plenty of money, but the gains can be marginal -- and can honestly just be a distraction from what you should actually be focused on. Running is certainly susceptible to this.

A few months ago, I ran my first-ever marathon. It was an incredible accomplishment I had no idea I'd ever be able to reach, and it's now going to be the first of many I run in my lifetime. And despite my deep-rooted history in tech, and the endless opportunities for being baited into gearing myself up with every last product to help me get through the marathon, I went with a rather simple approach.

Read more